Babyface

WHEN Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds altered his gentlemanly, crisp-suit-and-ascot image on his last album, 2001's Face2Face, nobody paid much attention. He grew a 'fro and started sporting dark shades and a five o'clock shadow as if he were Lenny Kravitz or somebody. He also tampered with his musical formula. For Face2Face, the singer-songwriter-uberproducer recruited outsiders -- younger cats like Snoop Dogg and the Neptunes -- to help him "get street." Lyrically, he got a little nasty, too, letting a few expletives slip.

In February, Severn native Toni Braxton said she was ready to retire from music to focus on acting. Even though the 45-year-old singer has sold more than 60 million records worldwide and has six Grammy Awards on her shelf, Braxton was "a little depressed" at the time, she says now. It took a pep talk from an old friend - Kenny "Babyface" Edmonds, the songwriter who helped launch the singer's career - to uplift and reinvigorate Braxton. "He understood what I was going through.

It's a shock that the stunningly beautiful man known as Babyface, the writer of so many soft and airy ballads, has a voice like polished granite. His words, when spoken as Kenneth Edmonds, are cool, smooth and undeniably strong.It's only the songs that seem helium-filled, hovering on sweet melodies that have made Babyface one of the most successful pop songwriters ever. Mr. Edmonds, 36, produces a song with the diligence of a palace chef creating a meal for a king, as if his life depended on the outcome.

One of the most debated topics throughout the WWE Universe is John Cena's character and the notion that many want him to turn heel. I think the term “heel” -- when talking about change that many want from John Cena -- is misleading. Before we explore the idea, let's first clearly define the term "heel. " At the very core, as many of you surely already know, a “heel” is someone the fans hate, a "bad guy. " JJ Dillon once told me in an interview a definition that I like to use -- someone that is not as good and/or talented as the “babyface” in the ring, so he needs to cheat to get the upper hand in a match.

FOR THE COOL IN YOUBabyface (Epic 53558)Considering the ease with which Babyface concocts hits for others, it shouldn't come as any surprise that his own album, "For the Cool in You," is chock full of hits. What wasn't expected, however, is the musical range he displays within those songs. For the title tune, he comes on suave and soulful; with "Never Keeping Secrets," he shifts to a lithe loverman approach that convincingly mixes emotional intensity with melodic immediacy. "Saturday" finds him working a thumping, new jack groove with pop-savvy aplomb, while "When Can I See You" is the kind of acoustic-guitar tune James Taylor used to write.

At 43, Babyface is beginning to show signs of age - laugh lines appear beside his eyes when he smiles, and he has a quiet thoughtfulness about him that comes with the years - but he's showing no signs of slowing down. The 10-time Grammy winner, born Kenneth Edmonds, has spent the last decade writing songs for artists including Whitney Houston, Madonna, Pink, Aretha Franklin and the Backstreet Boys; putting out five albums; producing TV shows and films (Soul Food the movie and its spinoff series on Showtime, among others)

By J.D. Considine and J.D. Considine,SUN POP MUSIC CRITIC | February 28, 1996

When the 38th annual Grammy Awards ceremonies get under way at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles this evening, you'll probably see a lot of stars shifting nervously in their seats as they await the words, "and the winner is . . ."But if the TV cameras happen to pick Babyface out of the crowd, don't be surprised if he looks cool as a cucumber. He's one musician who doesn't go in for the pins-and-needles approach to awards shows."You never know what's going to happen," he explains, over the phone from his Atlanta offices.

Big Show has quietly become one of the more compelling characters on SmackDown because of the ambiguous nature of his character as of late. He is booked as a heel, but at times he comes off as a cool babyface for being a thorn in the side of Edge. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ringposts)

Some thoughts on Thursday night's TNA Impact: The best reason to watch TNA continues to be Christian Cage, but his babyface turn - if indeed that's what this is supposed to be - continues to suffer from bad booking. Doing a slow, gradual turn is fine in some instances, but once Kurt Angle and his henchmen jumped Cage and laid him out - which happened three weeks ago - then Cage should have become a full-fledged babyface. The way the show is being written, it's hard to tell whether Cage is supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy. The only reason that I know that he's still a heel is because it says "heel" next to his name on the TNA script for next week's show that was leaked on the Internet.

I've been waiting for weeks to hear those two glorious words spoken with vitriol as only Vickie Guerrero can. Goodbye, whimpering, apologetic Vickie. Welcome back, scowling queen of mean. I'm so glad that WWE has resisted turning SmackDown's wickedly entertaining general manager babyface (reportedly that was to be the original ending of her story line with Edge). It was great to see her morph back into the woman viewers love to hate on SmackDown. (Go to baltimoresun.com/ringposts)

Big Show has quietly become one of the more compelling characters on SmackDown because of the ambiguous nature of his character as of late. He is booked as a heel, but at times he comes off as a cool babyface for being a thorn in the side of Edge. ( For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ringposts)

I've been waiting for weeks to hear those two glorious words spoken with vitriol as only Vickie Guerrero can. Goodbye, whimpering, apologetic Vickie. Welcome back, scowling queen of mean. I'm so glad that WWE has resisted turning SmackDown's wickedly entertaining general manager babyface (reportedly that was to be the original ending of her story line with Edge). It was great to see her morph back into the woman viewers love to hate on SmackDown. (Go to baltimoresun.com/ringposts)

Edge really messed up this time. It appears as if his and Vickie Guerrero's glorious reign of terror on Smackdown is over - along with their relationship - because he was caught on tape making out with the wedding planner. Triple H crashed Edge and Guerrero's wedding reception Thursday night on Smackdown and revealed the hidden video of Edge putting the moves on Alicia Fox. I'm deeply saddened by this shocking development. Edge and Guerrero are an awesome heel act and they have been carrying Smackdown.

Some thoughts on Thursday night's TNA Impact: The best reason to watch TNA continues to be Christian Cage, but his babyface turn - if indeed that's what this is supposed to be - continues to suffer from bad booking. Doing a slow, gradual turn is fine in some instances, but once Kurt Angle and his henchmen jumped Cage and laid him out - which happened three weeks ago - then Cage should have become a full-fledged babyface. The way the show is being written, it's hard to tell whether Cage is supposed to be a good guy or a bad guy. The only reason that I know that he's still a heel is because it says "heel" next to his name on the TNA script for next week's show that was leaked on the Internet.

One of the most prolific and successful pop-R&B songwriter-producers of the 1990s, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds was behind such monster hits as Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" and Toni Braxton's "You're Making Me High." During that time, he also established a multiplatinum career as a performer, racking up solo hits such as "Whip Appeal" and "For the Cool in You." On Playlist, his latest CD and the first release on the newly reactivated Mercury label, Edmonds covers his favorite pop classics, including Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle," James Taylor's "Fire and Rain" and others.

WHEN Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds altered his gentlemanly, crisp-suit-and-ascot image on his last album, 2001's Face2Face, nobody paid much attention. He grew a 'fro and started sporting dark shades and a five o'clock shadow as if he were Lenny Kravitz or somebody. He also tampered with his musical formula. For Face2Face, the singer-songwriter-uberproducer recruited outsiders -- younger cats like Snoop Dogg and the Neptunes -- to help him "get street." Lyrically, he got a little nasty, too, letting a few expletives slip.

Edge really messed up this time. It appears as if his and Vickie Guerrero's glorious reign of terror on Smackdown is over - along with their relationship - because he was caught on tape making out with the wedding planner. Triple H crashed Edge and Guerrero's wedding reception Thursday night on Smackdown and revealed the hidden video of Edge putting the moves on Alicia Fox. I'm deeply saddened by this shocking development. Edge and Guerrero are an awesome heel act and they have been carrying Smackdown.

By J.D. Considine and J.D. Considine,SUN POP MUSIC CRITIC | June 18, 1996

It's easy enough to be seduced by Toni Braxton's singing. Her voice is a delight, with a smooth, supple upper register and a lustrous lower end so dark and sweet that it's the aural equivalent of caramel. Even better, she uses that voice to full advantage, bringing an awesome intensity to power ballads while making the quiet songs seem as intimate as a whispered conversation.But however enticing her performance may be, it's hard to fall for an album if you're not smitten by the songs. So even though Braxton's singing is as alluring as ever, "Secrets" (LaFace 73008 26020, arriving in stores today)

Think "Toni Braxton," and a couple of things inevitably come to mind - saucy hits like "You're Making Me High" (about satisfying her desire for a man) and her unforgettable 2001 Grammy night dress, little more than a strategically placed long, white scarf. She laughs with a tinge of embarrassment when these are now mentioned, however. It's not that the daughter of a Maryland preacher doesn't want to keep pushing the sexual envelope and flaunting her God-given assets. It's just, well, she has other considerations now. In the time since her last album - 2000's The Heat - she's gotten married, had a son and now is pregnant again with another boy. "Songs like `You're Making Me High,' I would have to explain that to my boys when they get older," the Severn native says by phone from her home in Los Angeles.

LOOK UP the list of celebrity birthdays in today's paper, and you probably won't find Tim Watts listed there. But if you're a rhythm-and-blues fan in the Baltimore area, today is worth celebrating. Watts, WWIN-FM 95.9's drive-time disc jockey from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., turns 50 today. It's tempting, and downright cliche-ish, to say that Watts, with nearly 25 years as an on-air radio personality in this town, is a Baltimore institution. But that's not quite the word. A Baltimore monument is more like it. Who else would have stayed in this burg after what Watts has been through?